Is SOG Better... (Experienced Grower's Please Read)

first of all i'm a medical caregiver. My current operation has a 24 plant limit, i have it set up to where i harvest 4 plants once a month every month and its on split into 5 stages.

Clones stage:__4 plants
Veg stage 1:___4 plants
Veg stage 2:___4 plants
Flower stage 1:_4 plants
Flower stage 2:_4 plants

Mother plants: 2-4 plants

i have 2 1000w HPS lights in the flowering room and 2 400w MH lights in the veg room. using this set up i average 2-5 oz a plant with the correct growing conditions.

well recently my plant limit was increased to 60 plants wich is what brings me here. if i stay with my current set up i will have to invest in 4 or 5 more lights just for the flowering room plus more lights for veg room. upgrades in ventilation and co2 will be required as well.

now with the new plant limit of 60 i will be harvesting 12 plants once a month every month. i'm trying to figure out what will be more effecient, using my current method or swiching to the SOG. keep in mind that space is not an issue.

so this is what i'm looking at:

60 plants using current method average of 2 oz a plant:
-Clones stage:__12
-Veg stage 1:___12
-Veg stage 2:___12
-Flower stage 1:_12
-Flower stage 2:_12

with this i will see about 24 oz a month or as much as much as 48 oz(given the right conditions)

SOG
i will be harvesting about 30 plants a month

if i average 1 oz a plant thats 30 oz.

the biggest reason i'm leaning towards the SOG is becuase i can use my current equiptment even tho i'll have so many more plants.

so if your an experienced grower and have some knowledge about this, i would apreciate any insight you have. my garden is about to undergo a big change one way or the other, i just want to know whats worked for everyone else the best.

Thank you for the help.

your asking a really big question, and you will get many varying answers lol.

most ppl would agree that you get slightly better results the more work you put in. the prob for a lot of ppl is that the work required for the slight increase in results is often very large and simply not worth it.

i will be assuming for this the constraint is space:

Basic natural plant -> very little work (low yield, only one top quality bud)
LST -> still not a lot of work but some (better yield and more high quality buds)
SOG -> more work but slightly higher yields and "potential" for higher quality (dew to light distance for each bud) (also required a much higher # of plants)
SCROG -> Lots of work resulting in the potential for slightly higher yields still but almost no increase in quality over SOG

however if # of plants is your constraint every thing changes:

SOG -> out of the question
Natural -> still not a good option dew to poor limbs taking up space but not producing decent buds
LST -> a great median with little work required and decent maximizing of space and light distances.
SCROG -> the tip top if you have the time and motivations to do the work (high yields and high quality with only a few plants)


i have not used all the methods nor am i veteran grower so take this for what its worth and feel free to correct me wherever necessary.

With 2 1000 watt lights, you would be able to grow some real nice sog plants. I do 24 under 1 1000 watt light. As he said, there are going to be many different opinions to your question and there is no right answer. Some things for you to think about regarding sog, because that is what I know. In most sog setups, you will need to have at least four different reservoirs for your plants at different stages, and that will kinda be a b*tch and a lot of work. Also, with sog, IMO, it is more important to have everything really dialed in because the plants are generally smaller and IMO can be affected by poor conditions more easily than other methods of growing cannabis. For example I would never ever run sog without co2, some people do, but i wouldnt, and you could not control co2 with four maturely different levels of plants in the same room. There's a lot to think about sog is difficult and needs to be constantly managed. I would not grow SCROG because of how long you need to veg your plants before flowering. Also, it takes a lot of fn work and some experience.

I guess if I was going to do what you were doing, I would grow full plants out, and top them creating either 2 or 4 main colas. And i would do a recirculating DWC system, 4 of them, one for each stage. Although that is some work. THAT IS JUST ME THOUGH, get all of the information that you can get and decide what suits you best.

thanks for the input!

i've continued to do research on the subject and it really is a toss up for the difference in yeild beween the two. I honestly think its going to be SOG becuase its going to cut out all that lengthy veg time. if there is a difference in yeild it wont be enought to make up the difference in the amount of energy and nutrients it takes to do the SCROG.

since i have the new plant increase i'm going finish the ones i started already as planned and i'm going to take the remaining new plants and try out the SOG method. i'm keeping records of plant numbers, yeild and time growing time so i will post with pics and results as soon as they are available. the current plants have some pretty impressive things happening, they are incredibly healthy and covered in tricomes already.

the current method is 3 1/2 weekes in flowering, i will have pics plant numbers time growing and yeild in roughly 6 1/2 weeks.

SOG is about the numbers, small main cola numbers, you need some nice mothers, and take alot of clones and cutting.......

If your a medi grower and want to keep everything legit, safe and cool SOG is not something i am a fan of just because of the shear numbers invovled...... I like to Scrog it / super crop it to get a nice lush canopy with my smaller numbers, makes a perptual kinda hard, but makes taming unrully sativas easier and a all around nicer exp.

First off, you really could lose the MH in the veg room and go with T-5 HO's. I've retired my 400w MH from the veg room simply because ~220w of T-5's just blow it away. Those things are amazing for vegging along with less heat and less power consumption.

I do a SoG and it will fit your situation very well, especially with 2 lights like you have. 2 different canopy heights (flower stage 1&2) and harvest one a month.

The tricky part will be figuring out when to take clones and veg time so they will be ready to go in when you harvest 1/2 of the crop. This is all very strain dependent, how long does it really take to finish, how fast do the cuts root, how fast do they grow in veg, how much do they stretch and so on.

I like to have my clones ~8-10" tall going into flower. They stretch very little, but the internodes are so tight, I can usually count on needing a month or so of veg to get them that tall. Also, slow to root, so I allow a couple of weeks there. Full flower time is 9-10 weeks, so I take fresh cuts right around harvest time for going into the flower room 9 weeks +- later.

Hope this helps some.

Wet

why dont you grow some big boys...2oz per plant. you should be getting much more than that. Try revegitating one of the plants you harvest... yield will be almost doubled... if space isnt an issue

No way is "better", it just comes down to personal preference. I grew in BBs for a while before going SOG. The SOG works great for me, but it is not for everyone. My op is just a closet grow. It consist of eight mothers, 12 cuttings a week(I don't use all 12), 4x4 grow area and I easily have 90 something plants. I will say that running a SOG will give you A LOT of cloning experience.

Goldowitz said:

No way is "better", it just comes down to personal preference. I grew in BBs for a while before going SOG. The SOG works great for me, but it is not for everyone. My op is just a closet grow. It consist of eight mothers, 12 cuttings a week(I don't use all 12), 4x4 grow area and I easily have 90 something plants. I will say that running a SOG will give you A LOT of cloning experience.

Click to expand...

Ok i totally get ya... but plant numbers for medi growers this is not always um the best, safest, smartest i.m.o., way to go.... i mean i know some SOG growers running 300+ clones and 2 stages of like 60-75 flowers at a pop...... I mean if you have the co-op the city and county ordinace and a DR. whom will show up in court to testify go for it.... go for it.....

FOR THOSE WHOM DON'T:

"why dont you grow some big boys...2oz per plant. you should be getting much more than that. Try revegitating one of the plants you harvest... yield will be almost doubled... if space isnt an issue "

This is what i advocate, its what I try to teach friends, fellows, family and patients whom need it...... I was never a regveg fan have had minor success, I am more a start from seed, maybe a good legit clone and veg for an ok period then just like I said super crop or SCROG/LST not everyone has the time....

Hence why SOG was created and I cannot knock it for its goal 1-2 stage perpetuals low veg, quick flower single cola ops!!! I have seen some awesome, AWESOME SOG OPS!!! 18in.-24in. mains a whole room thick like 100-150 plants.... ( didnt count just was stunned ) but the shear number of plants blew me away I mean 2 stages of over 100+ flowering and then 300+ clones it took 2 full 10x10 rooms, and such but OMG it was pretty.....

So I guess it all comes down to you, your time you want to spend, numbers you can have, or care to have etc.